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OfflineKickleM
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Here's a thought
    #14015567 - 02/23/11 06:35 PM (13 years, 10 days ago)

If you have free will, can you stop your thoughts for a day? An hour? 10 minutes?
If not, why? Are you not willing your thoughts?
If not, then who is? Who or where are your thoughts coming from?

If the thoughts are in fact yours, does this negate free will?


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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14015626 - 02/23/11 06:46 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

I like the idea of "the extended mind." Your thoughts are the result of the activity in your brain. Neurons firing, etc. But all this is influenced by what you take in with your body and senses. Which in turn is influenced by things in the physical world. But these things are influenced by other physical things and so on and on and on. And furthermore, your reactions to things are influenced by all of your past experience and memories which were also influenced by physical things.

So the question here is where do draw the line between what is and is not the "mind" that causes the content of your conscious experience? Clearly it is caused by physical occurances of varying directness, but there is no clear border. IMO your conscious experience is like a focal point of all of these massively interlinked physical happenings that go far beyond what we would generally think of as your "body."

As for free will and whether we have it, it depends on your definition of free will. I like the compatibilist position which states that we have free will because we can act on our desires, even if they are predetermined.


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015711 - 02/23/11 06:59 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Yeah if you take some neuropsych courses you get to learn all the feeds in a great amount of detail. But even then, the nervous system is broken in two. The central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS includes all the feeds into and out of the brain. The PNS includes all the rest. There is a feedback loop in the PNS that does not require the brain at all. It can act independent of the brain. Like removing your hand from the stove before that signal has officially made its way into the brain and received the return signal from the motor cortices to remove it. Does the PNS have a mind of its own?

Is that acting on desires? Obviously I could desire not to get burned and to remove my hand, but my body took care of it before I had a chance to. Without limitations to desire against, that falls through. So my brain works on the more complex stuff, like prevention. An aversive desire to touching the stove again works, and it incorporates memory as part of this. But I sure as heck am not willing these problems into existence just so I can have a desire that tells me my behavior needs to change, so I dunno about the compatibilist position... I'd say I have no freedom in my tendency to desire less problems.

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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14015774 - 02/23/11 07:10 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

If its being broken up that way, then wouldn't the automatic removal of the hand from a stove be sort of on par with an "external" occurrence? In the same way that I might desire to stay in a room, but three guys come in and drag me out, so my free will is being taken?

Again, I guess it all comes down to what is meant by "free will"

Is free will seeing vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, and being able choose which one you want?

Is free will being able to make decisions independent of causality?

Is free will deciding that you actually do want to burn your hand, and being able to hold it on the stove anyway despite the automatic reaction?


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015797 - 02/23/11 07:15 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

I'd take the simple freedom to stop thought if I am willing it. If I am not willing thought, then discussion of free will in this post is much more a moot point. That's where the other questions of the original post come in.

IMO this is important because thought is a common precursor to decision making. If the thoughts informing my decision are not my free will, then how can the choice be the result of free will?


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Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015863 - 02/23/11 07:25 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

The whole idea of free will is the reason I find the idea of a judgmental deity abhorrent. i.e. omnipotent God creates humans, but gives them "free will" and so they are accountable for their "choice" to be good or evil and thus subject to judgment and punishment.

Surely an all-knowing all-powerful God knows the outcome of his creations. Since the outcome of all these personal and cosmic events is known from the start and was set into motion as such, this theoretical universe is deterministic. And so the "choice" that humans are given doesn't seem so much like a choice anymore, as it does God's plan. And so in order for all of this to be logically coherent, God is either malicious, apathetic, or not omnipotent.

I'm sure you're familiar with these ideas, summed up in the famous quote of Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

Seems like a relevant thought experiment on the subject of free will..

To get back to your original post, would complete control over your thoughts be more like what you would consider actual free will?

Maybe instead of being able to act on your desires, being able to actually control what your desires are would be more like free will..


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015917 - 02/23/11 07:37 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

If you wanna stick with desires, I'd be happy with the simple freedom to not have desire crop up in thought. Moving the target I project it onto is just a distraction from the fact that I have no choice but to have desire filled thought.


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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015919 - 02/23/11 07:37 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

When it comes to decision making, I think that everything really was set into motion long before you consciously make a decision. Lets say you pick chocolate. You like chocolate and vanilla, but not strawberry. So there is 1/3 of the decision already made. But why do you not like strawberry? You know you don't like it, because you tried it in the past, and "decided" you didn't like it. But did you really "decide" that? All you did was take a bite, and have a negative experience. There's really no "deciding" here. It just happened. So 1/3 of the decision was already made, and not really consciously by you.

So that leaves chocolate and vanilla, both of which you like. But which one will you decide to have at this particular moment? Time to decide. How do you do it? Do you really "choose?" You just sort of go, okay, which one do I want.. And your brain might spit out "Chocolate!" That sounds better.

So where is the "you" doing the choosing? I for one don't really think that its there.

So as for the aforementioned definition of "free will" as making decision independent of causality.. I think that is an illusion.

It is for this reason that I find it more important to be concerned with "freedom" rather than a metaphysical "free will." So as long as I don't have a fascist regime telling me that I must eat strawberry, I'd say that I'm in a pretty decent spot, and that "free will" is just a philosophical concept that is fun to ponder about.


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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14015935 - 02/23/11 07:40 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Quote:

Kickle said:
If you wanna stick with desires, I'd be happy with the simple freedom to not have desire crop up in thought. Moving the target I project it onto is just a distraction from the fact that I have no choice but to have desire filled thought.




Agreed.. I for one think that much greater control over the contents of our own minds is going to be a key next step in human evolution.


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14015963 - 02/23/11 07:45 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

If causality is the source, where does it originate? Where was the original push that led to chocolate ice-cream? I'm betting it was someones desire that led to chocolate ice-cream. But what was the origin of that desire? And I don't mean that desire in specific, I mean what is the origin of any desire?


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Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain

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Offlinesorahtak
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle] * 1
    #14016180 - 02/23/11 08:26 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Well, as to where desire itself originated from, I'd say survival and reproduction. For life forms to continue to exist and reproduce and compete as best as they can, it helps immensely if they WANT to.

I know that seems like a far cry from preferring chocolate ice cream, but I think that is the origin of desire, and that it evolved into more complex and untraceable forms.


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: sorahtak]
    #14016193 - 02/23/11 08:29 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

:thumbup:

Me too.


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Offlineafoafsgoat
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14016335 - 02/23/11 08:52 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

I've always felt that free will is like picking a number between one and ten. You most certainly have the free will to pick 8 over 2 any day of the week, but your "freedom" is restricted to only 10 numbers

In this case no I cannot stop my mind from functioning, thats part of being a healthy living human being. There are, however, many other things I have the freedom to do or not do. So free will exists but only to a certain degree

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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14016405 - 02/23/11 09:01 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

If I am the will behind thought, why would I be unable to stop thinking?
If I am not the will behind thought, then how can any choice informed by thought be the result of my will?

Is there choice that doesn't involve thought? How does one know what they have chosen?


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Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
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Offlineafoafsgoat
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14016477 - 02/23/11 09:11 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

i think will implies choice, so no thinking is not a matter of free will, it is a consequence of being alive

and yea ultimately free will is really restricted. every move you take, every choice you've ever made, each thought or opinion you have, and the very fact that you are thinking, is all a result of the way you were raised, and how you've grown from the experiences in life, and you have no control over the majority of that.
so even though you can choose between 1 and 10, someone else decided that you would choose between 1 and 10 instead of 11 through 20


in my opinion of course

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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: afoafsgoat]
    #14016519 - 02/23/11 09:18 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Yeah I hear it.


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InvisibleCups
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle]
    #14016537 - 02/23/11 09:21 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Quote:

If I am the will behind thought, why would I be unable to stop thinking?




But you can.  :shrug:  You can't clear your mind reliably in meditation?


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Cups]
    #14016568 - 02/23/11 09:26 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Fairly reliably. But this isn't because of will, at least not in my experience. I can also find a quiet mind during the day too, depending on what is happening.

I tend to think there are natural lulls in mental stirrings. Where if everything that needs to be communicated is allowed to accomplish its goal, a silence can fall. As though the message has been sent and received, nothing more to do... :chillpill:

In meditation there isn't a whole lot going on for me except occasional moments of repressed crud surfacing. One of the major perks to being in a safe home with lots of food.


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InvisibleCups
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Kickle] * 1
    #14016639 - 02/23/11 09:37 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

How would you say it wasn't your "will" clearing you mind during meditation?

You chose the time, place, etc.  You sat down, closed your eyes, and then focused on the breath (or whatever) and then at least IME there comes a point where even the breath is gone and it's pure silence.  There's no time, no thoughts, etc.

BUT I still did the work to get me there. 

:strokebeard:


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Here's a thought [Re: Cups]
    #14016641 - 02/23/11 09:37 PM (13 years, 9 days ago)

Quote:

Cups said:
Quote:

If I am the will behind thought, why would I be unable to stop thinking?




But you can.  :shrug:  You can't clear your mind reliably in meditation?





I haven't met many meditators who can totally clear their mind for long at all. The thought process my slow down dramatically however.


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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